


Cr1mson's Batman Drabbles

by Cr1mson5theStranger



Series: Cr1mson's Drabbles [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, crossposted to tumblr, just an assortment of drabbles in various styles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3401852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cr1mson5theStranger/pseuds/Cr1mson5theStranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of my drabbles series, but in the world of DC Comics, most specifically the Batfamily area of comics. Warnings for individual drabbles will be posted in notes at the beginning of each segment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red Robin: Wallet

The receipts were given to the flames. One by one, strips of unremarkable, glossy white paper printed with recent purchases and amounts of money spent on each fluttered into the fireplace, caught the tip of a fiery finger, and blackened into foul-smelling ash. Tim’s fingers barely paused as he emptied them out of his billfold, tossing them away rather indifferently into the fire.

Next came the credit cards, for emergencies only, Bruce had sternly said when he handed them to a younger, brighter-eyed boy in a different red uniform. To the best of the memory—photographic and drenched in vivid detail—Tim had only ever used them for small purchases here and there. A post-patrol meal, a mid-morning coffee run on the way to school. A deft flick of the wrist propelled them into the fire. The gaily-colored plastics melted into one another. Tim wouldn’t miss them.

Calloused fingertips played across the wallet, searching for anything else that could be discarded. His driver’s license, issued by the state of New Jersey on dull yellow plastic and bearing what passed for a signature, gleamed out at him from the main pocket. He didn’t even touch it, barely even glanced at the seven-month old photo on its left side. His hair had been shorter, then, and the scar on his lower lip fresher and more prominent. They had asked him to remove the studs in his ears and nose.

Tim withdrew his debit card and studied it a moment in the flickering firelight. Travel was expensive, and though his bank account had expanded rather rapidly in the last several days, hauling a stack of cash in his back pocket overseas—or wherever else he would go—was less than plausible. With a grimace, he placed it back in its designated pouch. Modern conveniences sometimes proved necessary dangers for vigilantes, however great.

He pulled out all the cash in the wallet, a rather unimpressive amount for a teenage billionaire, admittedly, and drew his hand back to fling it into the fire. Something inside him, though, halted the motion. His hand closed tighter around the wad of bills and coins before slamming them down onto the table beside him.

Tim stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, and slipped his wallet into his back pocket. A glance at the clock told him that his flight was due to leave in three hours. Quick, determined strides took him out the door and on his way to Spain.


	2. Jay/Tim, Jealousy (Prompt Fill)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: foul language, questionable domestic situation, jealousy

Jason had no reason to feel threatened in his own home, neither by intruder nor by guest. He had even less reason to bristle and become agitated at the doe-eyed glances Tim threw in another person’s direction, fickle bastard. And he most certainly  _was not_ jealous of that stupid, hulking, mongrel disaster incarnate they had the gall to call Superboy.

Or, rather, that was what he told himself.

The babybird was nothing if not perceptive, at least, and ushered Conner out the door the moment he could sense the tension in the room beginning to strangle them. He quickly shut and locked the door before whirling and fixing a laser-eyed glare on Jason. “What the hell was that all about?” he demanded.

Jason huffed, though he could feel his face flush red. Whether that was from rage or from shame, even he was unable to discern. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

Tim crossed his lean arms over his chest, pressing his lips together in that way he had that could only mean one of two things: he was flirting, or he was angry. Jason had enough sense to know which option was off the table. “Every time Conner comes to visit, you tense up and act like you’re about to try to kill him. Or me. Or maybe yourself.”

"Oh, for Christ’s sake," Jason scoffed.

"No, don’t blow this off, Jay!" Tim jabbed a finger at Jason. "I’m trying to keep us afloat here and make sure we don’t get blacklisted again, and whatever the hell your problem is, I’d love to help, but—"

"But what, Tim?!" Jason roared, and the force of his fury was so great that he stormed forward. "But fucking  _what_?! Am I not good enough for you all of a sudden?! Are you so goddamn busy making your stupid-ass googly eyes at that son of a bitch  _Kent_  that you can’t be bothered with me anymore?!”

Something inside of Jason snapped to, and he realized that he had rushed forward so suddenly, so violently, that Tim was now in a defensive stance, reaching for the Bowie knife on the wall. The younger man’s breathing was quickening, his eyes focused on Jason’s, and his hands trembling. It struck Jason, rather belatedly, how small Tim really was, how exhaustion and poor eating habits had driven grooves beneath his eyes and pushed his bones against his skin, how terribly simple it would be to snap him in half. And Tim, he was half-crouched, ready to spring, wiry muscles coiled in anticipation of an attack that wouldn’t come, that couldn’t be. Jason must have seemed a bear to that black-haired alley cat in the entryway. He took a step back, forced his tight shoulders down. Quietly, almost breathlessly, Tim ground out, “But it’s too damn difficult to talk to you when you’re always clenching your fists.”

Within a single, blurred instant, Tim had tugged on a jacket and was out the door, slamming it behind him. Jason was sliding down the wall, lighting a cigarette to calm his racing heart. He glanced at the doorway and thought, a little numbly, that Tim had left his shoes behind.


	3. Batman: Gauze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: minor character injury, lots of sweetness, might make you vomit

"Let me see," Bruce commanded, taking the boy’s left hand despite the protests reaching his ears and uncurling the slender young fingers. Preteen boys and busted knuckles were synonymous, he supposed, at least in this city. Still, the blood welling up from the fresh gashes made Bruce grimace in displeasure. Wordlessly, he reached out for the first aid kit on the other end of the cot.

"I can wrap it myself," Tim assured him, the words bright and eager but twinged with the slightest bit of guilt.

Bruce shook his head, his frown deepening. “I’m not sure you can handle gauze and tape one-handed.” Tim opened his mouth to protest, but Bruce held up a hand to stop him. “Let me wrap it or no patrol for a month.”

A defeated sigh hissed from Tim’s mouth, but he relaxed.

It was Tim’s fifth week as Robin, officially, and not the first injury the boy had sustained in the field. Bruce found himself unable to complain, though; it may not have been the most serious, but it was the most amusing. He derived an entirely new meaning from “big things come in small packages” after tonight. (Seeing a boy who stood barely over five feet tall and weighed 140 pounds after a good, long dip in the river punch out a man larger than Bruce was quite the sight.)

After a few long and agonizing minutes, Bruce smoothed athletic tape over the gauze to hold it in place and gave Tim’s wiry shoulder a paternal squeeze. “Leave that on for a few days. And next time, perhaps don’t aim for the teeth.”

Tim grinned and sprang off the cot. “Sure thing, B. I’m going to head home. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The boy began to stride off toward the showers.

"I hope your thirteenth birthday goes well next week," Bruce called.

Tim stopped short. “I’m…turning fourteen,” he said slowly.

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in something like a smirk. “No, you aren’t.”


	4. Ra's/Tim, Fear (Prompt Fill)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: knives, minor character injury, implied death threats

A curved line of sharpened metal bit into the leather over Tim’s throat, cutting through the material to sting his skin, and he felt an unfamiliar rush course through him. As tiny lumps rose with a cold chill over his flesh, a harsh voice rasped against his ear, “We meet yet again, Detective.”

Tim swallowed hard and shivered as his Adam’s apple bobbed against the blade at his throat. “Ra’s,” he ground out.

A strong hand reached around and fixed his chin in a firm grasp. “I thought I made it clear to you what you risked in returning to my home.”

"You did." Tim found it in himself to smirk. "I thought I made it clear to you that I don’t give a shit what you do to me."

Ra’s’ hand forced Tim’s head sharply to the left, pulling the blade back against his neck and nicking the skin. A droplet of warm blood welled up beneath the leather of the cowl’s throat. “You did. In that case, I should slit your throat, boy, and resurrect you just to keep you in pain.”

A choked laugh forced its way from Tim’s lips. “But you won’t. You need me.”

"Don’t flatter yourself. You are merely of convenience to me. Do you truly believe that you could be irreplaceable?"

"You act like I am."

Ra’s laughed then, so suddenly and so close to his ear that Tim flinched. “You stupid, arrogant young man,” Ra’s said. “I can wait for another like you. Can you say the same?”

The knife receded, but Tim remained rigid, eyes wrenched shut, sensing the sting and the burn of the small cut on his throat. Ra’s laughed again, lower in pitch, sending another chill through Tim’ veins. “See you soon, Detective.”

The man was gone almost as quickly as he’d arrived. Tim was no longer certain how much he truly needed the information he’d come to gather. He reached up to check the wound and found that his hand was trembling.

Suddenly, he knew what had produced the chill in him.

Fear.


End file.
